396 LAST WORDS. 



her economic and political interests by an energetic 

 policy." ^ 



Let us not be blind, then, to the fact that the day 

 must come, be it far off or near at hand, when all that 

 is left of old-world despotism shall have been ground 

 to chaff between the inexorable millstones of Western 

 progress, and that the Power that has toiled and 

 wrought with the clearest foresight and the greatest 

 amount of determination to secure its position in the 

 present, will speak with commanding voice when the 

 day of disruption is at hand. An energetic and con- 

 sistent policy may retain under the peaceful segis of 

 Great Britain the southern provinces of Persia ; a 

 vacillating and half-hearted procedure can only result 

 in eventually forcing upon her the unenviable task of 

 creating another Gibraltar upon the frowning heights 

 of Oman, even should no worse thing befall her. 



All those, then, who have given passing thought to 

 the great problems of empire in the East must welcome 

 with gratitude the straightforward statements of a 

 no half-hearted determination to protect our interests 

 there, which have more than once been made in recent 

 years by responsible statesmen, and must view with 

 satisfaction such signs as are visible of a recrudescence 

 of British power. 



And as it is in India that is to be found the fulcrum 

 of British rule throughout the East, so it is with pardon- 

 able pride and satisfaction that we look back upon the 

 years of strenuous endeavour which a succession of 

 devoted Englishmen have bestowed upon her. No 

 more welcome sound could fall upon the ears of the 

 people to whose keeping has been confided the sacred 

 trust of an Eastern empire than the words uttered 

 by Lord Curzon at the conclusion of a comprehensive 



1 Pester Lloyd, June 1903. 



